Love Match of The Century

Who doesn't love an engagement? Whispers reckons this is the best comment to date:

Rupert Murdoch & Jerry Hall : so much to discuss

One of the madder tales doing the rounds and which is bound to be repeated ad infinitum is the rumour that billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is dating the Texan model Jerry Hall. Jerry is pictured here with her former boyfriend Warwick Hemsley and with her daughter Georgia May Jagger during Sydney visits.
What could this newspaper obsessed mogul possibly have in common with fun loving Jerry?. Well according to Nick Davies in his best- seller Hack Attack about the recent hacking scandal, perhaps pillow talk could involve a discussion about how Rupert's tabloids hacked the phone of Bernard Doherty who was Mick Jagger's publicist when he was married to Jerry which provided a string of exclusive tales about the couple's divorce for the Murdoch newspapers.

NYE Fireworks with Jack Thompson

"G'Day Sydney, I have to say that I am really excited to be nominated as the Creative Ambassador for 2014 Sydney New Year's Eve. What an honour!  To be chosen to represent my "home town" in this way; To share with you all the celebration of this beautiful city on New Year's Eve. "

Murdoch Split No Surprise

the Social Shuttle : April 2013

The news may have caught the Australian, British and US media on the hop but avid Shuttle readers were in on the secret at least 2 months ago when we reported a snippet from our New York operative who had been a guest at an up-town dinner party. A fellow guest, a Fox executive had confided to a stunned table that all was not well with the marriage of our favourite ex-pat media mogul Rupert Murdoch and wife Wendi. Apparently the liberally watered executive said that Rupert and Wendi had been living separate lives for so long now that he expected the marriage to end soon and thus, as the world discovered yesterday it came to pass.
 Despite that the pair were in Australia last December for the red carpet opening night of Les Miserables and all looked well but Rupert has been back to Sydney twice since( just last week) on his own. At that time we spoke of the troubles that have bedevilled the entire Murdoch clan as revealed by former News Corp executive and insider Rodney E.Lever.

Kai Torv, William & Anna Mann, Hans Torv.

Never fear. Social Shuttle operatives are everywhere and we shall bring you news of any new splits or pairings involving a current or former Murdoch, just as we did in December 1999 when we presented the first photograph to the world of the former Anna Murdoch with her new husband William Mann along with Anna's brother, Gold Coast radio boss Hans Torv and his wife Kai. Hans is the father of actress Anna Torv, star of the hit cult TV series Fringe.  The foursome were celebrating the New Year at the Sydney Opera House.

When Rupert & Anna divorced in 1999 Anna is reported to have received over $1B in assets, the largest ever divorce settlement.

Tabloid Tales :"Kate's Pregnant!"

Daily Telegraph

Australia's top selling tabloid The Daily Telegraph (proprietor : Rupert Murdoch) brings us the tale of how dozens of magazines world-wide have reported the false claim that Prince William's bride Kate is pregnant.

A 'staff writer' tells us how "a tally of incorrect US gossip mag covers shows their editors have made fake hay while the sun remained behind clouds this year" when reporting the non-existent pregnancies of Kate Middleton, Kim Kardashian, Angelina Jolie and more.

These mad claims were brought undone when that US TV network of repute Fox News ( proprietor : Rupert Murdoch) compiled the list of glossy magazines which made the phoney claim.

Our staff writer even has a dig at the Oz glossy New Idea (referred to as No Idea by industry wags) which also fell for the Kate Middleton 'pregnancy' claim.

Alas, our News Corp scribe missed one small fact in his/her mention of the New Idea. Just who was the source for their claim?.

Step forward a 'royal photographer' who is interviewed for the cover piece that screams :
YES. KATE'S PREGNANT!...Exclusive interview with official royal photographer

New Idea

The snapper in question and "royal insider" is Arthur Edwards who gushed to New Idea :" Kate looked great but I just got a feeling she wasn't quite herself".

And just who does our 'royal insider' take his royal photographs for ? (from the press pen along with every other photographer)...why the popular top selling UK tabloid The Sun (proprietor : Rupert Murdoch)

a friendly Freudian slip

    That's how writer Mandy Miami described the diminutive Mathew Freud in a British magazine many years ago, long before he became the "most influential public relations executive in Britain"  according to PR Week magazine. Freud is boss of Freud Communications: motto:  "Sometimes we upset people.."

   But what is this statement all about in the New York Times ?. According to the newspaper Freud says:

 “I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to,”

       Oh really ?. Shurley shome mishtake as the English satirical magazine Private Eye would say. Freud is referring to the boss of the US cable network Fox News, Roger Ailes.

      Rupert Murdoch had just heaped praise upon Ailes and his skilled management of Fox News and it's capture of every right-wing ratbag US viewer and it's slavish devotion to Republican Evangelism.
       Mathew Freud is also married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth.

       But what about his dad-in-law's UK publications The Sun or the News of The World which have been dragging journalistic standards down to gutter level  for over 2 decades ?. Not that they had far to fall.

       A little too close to home perhaps.

        Murdoch's British rags dole out tosh by the tonne each week but who could forget some shining moments like the 'Gotcha' headline of The Sun front page in 1982, celebrating the horrible death of 323 young Argentinian sailors in a useless war for the sheep-shagging Falklands Islands begun by the Murdoch adored Margaret Thatcher.

     And let's not even go near the once respectable Sunday Times which reached it's lowest point in 1983 when it published the hilarious Hitler Diaries which contained nonsense like ""Eva gave a glorious supper party tonight at the Bergdorf with boiled veggies. Hermann G. doped to the eyeballs as usual. Heinrich H. reports excellent results with Zyclon B (wife Margarete still an old cow).Tomorrow we take Poland. Dinner after with the Thyssens " or words to that effect.

        Despite being informed the diaries were a hoax, Murdoch published anyway declaring "we're in the entertainment business".

    Which is just what Fox News is. Entertaining to a point but with rather serious consequences. Along with Murdoch's worldwide media outlets it was a major drum beater for the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions.

     Where was Freud at that time ?. Probably hosting wonderful PR events at his Notting Hill house with guests like Prime Minister Tony Blair who was declaring that Saddam Hussein's (non-existent) WMDs were "45 minutes from London", a line fed to him by perhaps the former most influential public relations executive in Britain, Alastair Campbell and possibly dreamed up by a gossiping London taxi driver according to the newspaper of alleged repute, the Times (which previously promoted the bogus "45 minute" claim without question-owner: R.Murdoch)

     What is happening here ?.

      Fox News is horrendous, as can be seen just recently in one small example when a group of Los Angeles fire fighters who had travelled to Haiti under their own steam and expense were pictured dragging a 70 year old lady from the earthquake rubble on one TV network while at the same time the atrocious pill popping lard bucket and radio host Rush Limbaugh was interviewed on Fox telling Americans not to donate to the various Haitian relief funds as a solemn Sean Hannity nodded in agreement.

      The Sydney Morning Herald (article removed) speculates that Freud's statement is some sort of power ploy within the Murdoch family: "Authorised by the committee"as Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff puts it.. The committee being Lachlan Murdoch, Elisabeth and possibly presumptive heir James Murdoch. Or against James by the others. Wolff speculates that the statement has been released deliberately.

Mathew's great grand-dad Sigmund

 Perhaps Mathew Freud has dreams of taking over the News Corp empire with wife Elisabeth's help when Rupert kicks the bucket. After all with clients like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Nike (both still ripping off workers) the world would be Mathew's oyster with a global media empire to play with.

       Forget it Mathew. News Corp is a teetering financial dinosaur riddled with cancer and when Rupert is called to account before his maker it will crumble like the deck of cards it is, currently superbly juggled with a magician's skill and sleight of hand that has bedazzled bankers and money lenders worldwide. Settle just for the News of The World, it's more your style.

(Roger Ailes suggested Freud see a psychiatrist ! )